Military Affairs: Year In Review 1999

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This article was originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year, an annual print publication that
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Few regions of the world were free of military conflict during 1999. In Europe the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which had won the Cold War without firing a shot, launched a 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia in an effort to stop the government of Yugoslav Pres. Slobodan Milosevic from mistreating ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo. Russia once again engaged in military operations against the breakaway republic of Chechnya. India and Pakistan once more exchanged blows over Kashmir. The long-running civil wars in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka showed no signs of resolution. In Africa neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea disputed a border region, while Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo [Kinshasa]), and Sierra Leone all were battlegrounds during the year. In Latin America the civil war in Colombia dragged on, while in Asia there were skirmishes between the two Koreas, and a UN peacekeeping force was called in to curb the violence in the Indonesian province of East Timor. The UN Security Council also authorized a peacekeeping force for Sierra Leone and opened negotiations on a 15,000-strong force for Congo (Kinshasa).

Arms Control and Disarmament

The U.S. Senate dealt a major blow to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty when it rejected it in October. Opponents of the treaty, supported by a CIA report that said the agency could not precisely monitor low-level nuclear tests by Russia, charged that it was unverifiable. Supporters had warned that without U.S. ratification, known or potential nuclear powers such as India, Pakistan, and North Korea were unlikely to sign the treaty.

There was little progress during the year in other nuclear-arms negotiations. While Russia accepted a U.S. proposal to discuss possible amendments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Russians remained adamantly opposed to any significant changes. Russian spokesmen charged that U.S. missile defense legislation and testing indicated that the U.S. planned to abrogate the treaty unilaterally and warned that such an action would undermine all nuclear arms agreements between the two countries. Disturbed by this issue and by NATO’s actions against Yugoslavia, the Russian legislature continued to refuse to ratify the 1993 Strategic Arms Reduction Talks II treaty.

While the 1997 Ottawa Landmines Convention, which banned the use, stockpiling, production, or transfer of antipersonnel land mines, entered into force on March 1, it did not prevent the continued use of those weapons. Both ethnic Serbs and ethnic Albanians planted mines during the civil war in Kosovo, and Russian troops used them against Islamic insurgents in Dagestan.

In March the 30 signatories of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty agreed on the basic steps they would take to “adapt” the Cold War-era treaty to the current security environment in Europe. The major change would be to replace the treaty’s bloc-to-bloc limits with a system of national and territorial ceilings. The new treaty was signed during the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE’s) November summit meeting in Istanbul after Russia pledged to give up two of its military bases in Georgia and to withdraw its troops from Moldova. Russia admitted that because of the unrest in the Caucasus it had more military equipment in the treaty’s flanks region than was allowed. Several signatories said they would not ratify the new agreement until the Russians met their obligations in that region.

United States

The $288.8 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2000, $8.3 billion more than the administration had requested, included $56 billion for weapons procurement. The bill also provided for continued development of missile defense systems. Pres. Bill Clinton in July had signed a bill calling for the deployment of a ground-based national missile defense system “as soon as technologically possible.” During the year there were successes in testing system components. The Theater High-Altitude Area Defense missile scored successful intercepts in June and August after six consecutive failures. In October a prototype interceptor for the national missile defense system launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands successfully intercepted a target Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile that had been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The $267.8 billion defense appropriation bill provided $3.3 billion for weapons and programs that the military had not requested, including extra money for air force C-17 transports and F-15 fighters and for a navy amphibious assault ship. In a surprise move the House of Representatives vetoed production funds for the air force’s F-22 Raptor program, but money for continued development and evaluation was returned to the final version of the bill. The plane would have to pass stiff testing requirements before it could enter production.

A study commissioned by the Department of Defense said that it was possible that the mysterious “Gulf War syndrome” could have been caused by a drug given to troops during the 1991 conflict. Some 250,000 troops had received doses of an experimental drug, pyridostigmine bromide, to protect them against possible Iraqi use of Soman nerve gas. Defense officials reported that the program to inoculate all service personnel with anthrax vaccine was going well but admitted that several hundred had refused the mandatory shots.

Retention and recruiting continued to be a problem for all the services. In an attempt to meet its recruiting goals as the fiscal year drew to a close, the army offered a special $6,000 bonus to new enlistees. The air force, which had been forced to freeze retirements and resignations for some 120,000 personnel during the Kosovo bombing campaign, ended the fiscal year more than 10,000 persons under its mandated strength. In an effort to make military service more attractive, Congress voted a 4.8% pay raise for the military to take effect on Jan. 1, 2000. This figure was 0.4% higher than the Clinton administration’s request and would make the pay hike the largest for the military in 18 years.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command was established in October, replacing the U.S. Atlantic Command. In addition to assuming the latter’s geographic area of responsibility, the new command would be the lead agency in developing the training, doctrine, experimentation, and procedures for military operations involving more than one service. It was also given the mission of providing military assistance to U.S. civil authorities in the event of an attack or accident involving weapons of mass destruction. Concern about the possibility of “cyberattacks” against military computer networks prompted the creation of a Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense within the U.S. Space Command.

The pilot of a U.S. Marine Corps jet that had caused the death of 20 skiers in Italy when the aircraft clipped the cable of their gondola in February 1998 was acquitted of manslaughter by a court-martial in March. He was, however, subsequently convicted of obstruction of justice for having helped destroy a videotape made during the flight and was sentenced to six months in prison. He and the plane’s navigator were also dismissed from the marines. After press reports that U.S. soldiers had massacred hundreds of South Korean villagers near the village of No Gun Ri in July 1950, early in the Korean War, Secretary of Defense William Cohen in October ordered an investigation of the allegations.

NATO

The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland formally became members of NATO in March. (See Special Report: NATO at 50.) The military campaign against Yugoslavia was the largest military effort ever undertaken by the alliance. During the year a number of changes in NATO’s top civilian and military leadership were made or announced. Secretary-General Javier Solana (seeBiographies) accepted the post of the European Union’s first high representative for the common foreign and security policy. He was also picked to head the Western European Union. At NATO Solana was replaced in October by Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (George Robertson), the former British defense minister. In a controversial move President Clinton announced in July that Gen. Wesley Clark, who commanded all NATO and U.S. forces in Europe, would leave these posts in May 2000, two months ahead of schedule. NATO approved Clinton’s nomination of U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston to replace Clark.

NATO’s new military command structure took effect on September 1. It consisted of two strategic commands: Allied Command Europe, headquartered in Mons, Belg., and Allied Command Atlantic, located in Norfolk, Va., each with subordinate regional and subregional commands.

United Kingdom

Geoff Hoon replaced George Robertson as secretary of state for defense in October. Several steps were taken during 1999 to implement the new Joint Rapid Reaction Forces; the 16 Air Assault Brigade was established in September, to be fully operational in 2004, and the tri-service Joint Helicopter Command was established in October.

In September the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain’s ban on homosexuals’ serving in the armed forces was a violation of the basic human right to privacy. The court upheld the U.K.’s policy of not allowing women to serve in the Royal Marines.

France

Only 68,000 of the 186,000-strong army were conscripts as France reached the midpoint in its six-year conversion to an all-volunteer military. The commissioning of the 40,600-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was delayed until the spring of 2000. To ensure that France retained a carrier capability in the interim, the retirement of the aging conventionally powered carrier Foch was postponed until July 1, 2000.

Germany

Financial problems forced the government to cut DM 18.5 billion (DM 1 = about U.S. $0.55) from the defense budget over the next four years, with DM 3.5 billion being taken from the DM 48.8 billion earmarked for defense in 2000. Several multinational programs were affected, such as the European NH-90 military transport helicopter.

Following a Ministry of Defense report that the many domestic and foreign commitments of the armed forces had stretched their resources to the maximum, Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping in May established a commission to study the future of the armed forces. It was scheduled to submit its findings in September 2000. Two of Europe’s most important defense and aerospace companies, Germany’s DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and France’s Aerospatiale Matra, announced in October that they would merge.

Yugoslavia

The security situation in the Serbian province of Kosovo deteriorated in January when Yugoslav army and special police troops escalated their offensive against the Kosovar Albanians. Under pressure from the six-nation Contact Group, the two sides met at Rambouillet, near Paris, France, in February and March to seek a peace agreement. The Kosovar Albanian delegation signed the proposed agreement, but the Yugoslav delegation refused. Serb military and police forces then immediately stepped up their repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Unable to complete their mission because of obstruction from Serb forces, the OSCE observer force withdrew from Kosovo on March 20.

When a final attempt to persuade Yugoslav Pres. Slobodan Milosevic to stop the attacks on Kosovar Albanians failed, NATO began Operation Allied Force on March 24. During the next 11 weeks, aircraft from 13 NATO countries flew more than 37,000 sorties, of which more than 14,000 were strike missions that dropped 23,614 bombs in an air campaign designed to destroy and disrupt the Yugoslav army and special police units in Kosovo. Strategic targets throughout Yugoslavia, such as the integrated air defense system, military command and control headquarters, petroleum storage facilities, and electrical power stations were also attacked by aircraft and cruise missiles. Some of the alliance’s most sophisticated weapons systems were used, such as the American B-2 and F-117 stealth aircraft, which dropped bombs guided by inputs from the global positioning satellite system. While great care was taken to avoid civilian casualties, there were mistakes, as when, through faulty intelligence, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed instead of the intended target, the Yugoslav military supply and procurement office.

NATO had great respect for Serb air defenses. While only two NATO aircraft were lost in combat, one was an F-117, supposedly invisible to radars. Postcombat analyses revealed that the Serbs had been particularly skillful in camouflaging their equipment and in deploying dummy tanks, artillery, and bridges.

The air campaign ended on June 10 after the Serbs had agreed to stop all hostilities, withdraw their military forces from Kosovo, and accept a NATO-led international security force (KFOR) in Kosovo. This settlement was endorsed by the UN Security Council. The Russians stole a march on KFOR by sending 200 paratroopers serving with the peacekeepers in Bosnia and Herzegovina to seize the airport at Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, before KFOR entered the province. This led to a tense standoff in Pristina for several days, during which the KFOR commander, British Lieut. Gen. Sir Michael Jackson, invoked his right to appeal to his national superiors and refused an order from his NATO superior, U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark, to oust the Russians. The impasse was broken on June 18 when the Russians, who had insisted that they be given a sector of their own in Kosovo, agreed to divide their contribution of 3,600 troops to KFOR among the sectors controlled by France, Germany, and the U.S.; Italy and the U.K. controlled the other two sectors.

One of KFOR’s missions was to monitor, verify, and enforce the voluntary commitment by the Kosovo Liberation Army to turn in its weapons, a process that was completed on September 20. Soon afterward, KFOR reached its full strength of 50,000, with 42,000 troops serving in five multinational brigades within Kosovo and another 8,000 providing support in neighbouring Macedonia and Greece. More than 30 nations contributed to the force, including all NATO members except Iceland and Luxembourg and such other diverse participants as Finland, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.

Turkey

Turkish forces continued to make periodic incursions into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdistan Workers Party guerrillas. The Supreme Military Council in August expelled 58 commissioned and noncommissioned officers from the army for involvement in extreme religious or political activities. The parliament in November passed a bill allowing draftees to buy their way out of military service, with the money raised earmarked for earthquake damage reconstruction.

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Russian disapproval of NATO’s expansion and its intervention in Yugoslavia sparked some military actions and rhetoric that were reminiscent of the Cold War. In June the Russian armed forces carried out their largest joint maneuvers since the collapse of the Soviet Union in a scenario designed to counter NATO “aggression.” Nuclear-capable bombers probed NATO air defenses in Norway and Iceland. Later in the year similar simulated missions were flown near Alaska. The draft of a new military doctrine submitted to the State Duma in October was confrontational in tone and underlined the primacy of nuclear deterrence in ensuring Russia’s security. Many analysts were concerned about the Ministry of Defense’s emphasis on nuclear weapons. With the conventional forces in desperate need of new equipment, critics charged that too high a percentage of the scarce procurement funds was being spent on nuclear weapons, such as the new Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile. To improve its air-launched nuclear capability, Russia finally came to terms with Ukraine over the purchase of 11 ex-Soviet strategic bombers inherited by Ukraine when the Soviet Union collapsed. These included eight Tu-160 Blackjack supersonic bombers, which more than doubled the air force’s inventory.

In early August several hundred Islamic militants from Chechnya crossed into neighbouring Dagestan, where they seized several villages in the mountainous west of that province. Russian military and police units were initially unable to dislodge them, and in early September a second and larger invading force entered Dagestan from Chechnya, joining forces with local Muslim militants. When the Russians responded with more intensive air and artillery strikes, the militants widened the conflict with terrorist bomb attacks, first in Dagestan’s second largest city, Buinaksk, and then in Moscow and other cities in Russia proper. This prompted the Russians to launch a bombing campaign throughout Chechnya, one they claimed was modeled on NATO’s attacks on Yugoslavia. On September 10 Russian ground forces moved into Chechnya from the north, and within a month they controlled one-third of the republic, the flat steppe north of the Terek River. They also took control of the heights on the border with Georgia to the south and cut the main road to Ingushetia to the west. In an offensive that was far more cautious and deliberate than that in the humiliating 1994–96 war in Chechnya, Russian ground troops slowly moved on the Chechen capital, Grozny, supported by air strikes and heavy artillery. The declared aim of the invasion, which involved 100,000 Russian troops, was to establish a security zone to block the militants’ access to neighbouring regions, but on December 25 the Russians began an assault on Grozny itself. More than 200,000 Chechen refugees fled to the adjacent republics.

The paratroopers’ dash to seize Pristina airport and the early successes in northern Chechnya improved the Russian military’s tarnished image, but the systemic problems of the armed forces were largely untouched. Officers continued to leave the services in large numbers, which created serious shortages, especially at the platoon and unit level. Abuse of recruits, trading in stolen military property, and corruption remained rampant.

The 1992 CIS Collective Security Treaty expired in April, and only six of the nine signatories chose to extend it; Armenia, Belarus, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan signed the prolongation protocol, while Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan refused to do so. The loose GUAM grouping became GUUAM that same month when Uzbekistan officially joined the organization founded by Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova as a counterbalance to the Russian-led CIS. Those countries pledged to work jointly to resolve regional conflicts and crises. The CIS treaty was invoked in October when the members agreed to help Kyrgyzstan cope with the ethnic Uzbek Islamic rebels operating in the mountainous Osh region. Uzbekistan participated in this effort on a bilateral basis, providing both troops and combat aircraft. The violence spilled over into neighbouring Tajikistan when Uzbek aircraft bombed suspected rebel locations in August and October.

There was substantial progress in Tajikistan in disbanding the military forces of the United Tajik Opposition, as called for in the peace agreement that ended that country’s civil war. Russia and Tajikistan signed a treaty in April preserving Russia’s right to station some 20,000 Russian army and border troops in Tajikistan.

Middle East and North Africa

The UN Security Council could not agree on a new weapons-inspection regime in Iraq, nor would it lift the economic sanctions against that country. Throughout the year U.S. and British planes patrolled the northern and southern “no-fly zones,” where they were regularly fired upon by Iraqi air-defense forces. The planes retaliated against antiaircraft missile and artillery batteries, radar sites, and communications facilities. Israel in November was successful in the first integrated test of all the components of the Arrow antitactical missile weapon system. The Israeli-American system was scheduled to achieve its initial operating capability in 2000.

South and Central Asia

After having conducted a series of nuclear weapons tests in 1998, India and Pakistan demonstrated in 1999 that they had the means to deliver those weapons. In April India successfully launched its Agni-II ballistic missile and declared that the nuclear-capable system was operational. Pakistan quickly followed suit with its Ghauri-II missile. In May the two countries exchanged artillery fire as the Indians sought to dislodge Pakistani-backed Muslim militants from several mountain peaks in the Indian-controlled region of Kashmir. Supported by fighter jets and attack helicopters and fighting at altitudes above 5,000 m (16,400 ft), the Indian army finally repulsed the insurgents after a 10-week campaign. On August 10 an Indian jet fighter shot down a Pakistani naval reconnaissance aircraft that allegedly had penetrated Indian airspace in the coastal Rann of Kutch region. In October the Pakistani military ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his government after Sharif tried to fire army chief Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf. Musharraf, who replaced Sharif, announced a unilateral reduction of troops along the border with India. There continued to be skirmishes, however, along the line of control in disputed Kashmir.

While controlling more than 90% of Afghanistan, the Taliban Islamic militia remained frustrated in their attempts to seize the remainder. Their summer offensive initially dislodged the opposition forces of Ahmad Shah Masoud from their positions north of Kabul, but a counteroffensive by Masoud regained most of the lost territory. In October the Taliban advanced on the northern city of Taloqan but were unable to seize it before the weather turned against them.

The lull in the fighting between Sri Lankan security forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was broken in April when government troops went on the offensive in the northwest of the island. They were able to regain control of some 1,400 sq km (550 sq mi) but were badly mauled by the LTTE in September in the same region. The next month government troops, supported by heavy artillery and attack helicopters, won a major battle near Ampakamam but were still unable to open the main highway to the Jaffna Peninsula. In November the rebels had their greatest string of victories in years, seizing 10 government bases in the Wanni region and advancing toward the city of Vavuniya.

East and Southeast Asia, Oceania

Military relations between the U.S. and China were strained by American accusations that a physicist at the Los Alamos, N.M., nuclear laboratory provided China with the details of the W88 warhead, which arms the U.S. Trident D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile. In August the Chinese successfully launched their Dong Feng (DF)-31 intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time. The solid-fuel missile had a range of 8,000 km (about 5,000 mi) and could be used to deliver multiple warheads, similar to the W88. In October the Chinese unveiled their new generation fighter-bomber, the FBC-1 Flying Leopard.

The South Korean navy sank a North Korean torpedo boat and seriously damaged at least four others in June, ending a weeklong confrontation between naval and fishing vessels from the two nations in disputed waters in the Yellow Sea. Intelligence reports indicating that North Korea was preparing to test a long-range ballistic missile triggered warnings from the U.S., South Korea, and Japan. The North Koreans offered to talk about the issue and in September tentatively agreed to forego the tests in exchange for a promise of economic assistance from the U.S. and Japan.

Concern about North Korea prompted Japan to participate for the first time in naval maneuvers with South Korea and to join with the U.S. in joint research on a regional naval-based missile defense system. In March Japanese warships fired warning shots in an attempt to stop two suspicious vessels, suspected to be North Korean, that were operating in Japanese waters. A parliamentary vice-minister for defense was forced to resign in October after he suggested that Japan should consider acquiring nuclear weapons.

With the Indonesian armed forces unable or unwilling to curb the rampaging armed militias in East Timor following that province’s vote for independence, a UN-sponsored peacekeeping force was landed in September to restore order. Led by Australia, the 7,000-strong International Forces in East Timor (INTERFET) included contingents from 15 other countries. Later in the year INTERFET was replaced by a larger UN military force. The last Indonesian soldiers withdrew from East Timor in November, ending a 24-year occupation of the former Portuguese colony.

Caribbean and Latin America

By providing more assistance to the Colombian military’s antinarcotics efforts, the U.S. was drawn further into that country’s long civil war, as most of Colombia’s cocaine was produced in areas controlled by the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In May Defense Minister Rodrigo Lloreda resigned to protest Pres. Andrés Pastrana Arango’s decision to give FARC control over a 40,000-sq km (16,000-sq mi) sanctuary. The government and FARC began direct peace negotiations in October, but FARC refused to agree to a cease-fire before there was “substantial progress” in the talks.

Africa South of the Sahara

Forces from several other African nations remained involved in the civil war in Congo (Kinshasa). The conflict became even more complicated in August when troops from Rwanda and Uganda that had been supporting the rebel forces turned their arms on each other. A cease-fire accord mediated by Zambian Pres. Frederick Chiluba was signed in July by all the nations intervening in the conflict, but it was another six weeks before the two main rebel groups signed the pact. Rebel attacks in the south and northwest in October threatened the fragile truce. In the neighbouring Republic of the Congo, rebel militias known as Ninjas continued to harass government forces around the capital, Brazzaville, and along the strategic rail line running from the capital to the coast.

The Tutsi-dominated army in Burundi continued to struggle against the country’s numerous Hutu rebel groups. In June the rebels stepped up their attacks around the capital, Bujumbura, which prompted the army to relocate some 260,000 villagers into camps in a controversial effort to isolate the rebels. To the south the civil war in Angola flared up again early in the year, with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebels putting government troops on the defensive. In October the government launched an offensive against the UNITA positions in the central plateau. Using newly acquired Su-27 jets and fuel-air explosives, it overran the UNITA strongholds of Bailondo and Andulo.

In Sierra Leone rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) invaded the capital, Freetown, in January. After two weeks of bitter fighting, they were chased out by the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force ECOMOG. In July Pres. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and RUF leader Foday Sankoh signed a peace agreement that ended the eight-year civil war. The UN Security Council in October authorized a 6,000-strong peacekeeping force for Sierra Leone, to work with but not replace the ECOMOG force.

In September leaders of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea set up a joint security committee in an effort to reduce military tension in the area where their borders meet. ECOMOG troops landed in Guinea-Bissau’s capital, Bissau, early in the year to supervise a cease-fire agreement between government troops and rebels loyal to ousted military chief Gen. Ansumane Mane. The truce did not hold, and the peacekeepers were withdrawn in June after Mane overthrew Pres. João Bernardo Vieira. Following a coup in Côte d’Ivoire on December 24, a junta led by Gen. Robert Guei took power from Pres. Henri Konan Bédié.

Despite a UN Security Council demand for an immediate cease-fire, Ethiopia and Eritrea renewed their two-front border war in February, with Ethiopia recapturing the disputed town of Yirga/Badme. In May Ethiopia widened the conflict by bombing the Eritrean port of Massawa. After Ethiopia rejected the details of a peace plan brokered by the Organization of African Unity, fighting broke out again in September. The struggle between Ethiopia and Eritrea spread to Somalia, where the two sides backed rival warlords. In June the Ethiopian army laid siege to the town of Baidoa in central Somalia, defeating forces of the Eritrean-backed Oromo Liberation Front. The Sudan charged that Eritrea was also providing a sanctuary for units of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army.